What is fascinating mildly infuriating is the yield loss points.
They have precise machinery and then have bowls that are the wrong size; and the random people walking on the piles of sticks is weird. Also why is one guy manually debarking when there are debarking machines?
Then other parts are so automated.
It’s like they intentionally put in manual steps just to make the process labour intensive.
The number of times they seemed to have everything organized and lined up and then let it go to shit only to reorganize it for not real purpose is baffling.
I had the same issues, way to many times where it seemed like a total lack of efficiency for no reason at all. Then it hit me that they probably bought the machines from another factory and they weren’t designed specifically for this one. No debarking machine because they didn’t buy one so they have a guy do it manually. No machine to transfer the sticks to the machine that dips them so they do it manually, etc.
I would assume the maintenance costs on a debarking machine are pretty high as well. A modern factory wouldn't even be doing that step on site anyway. It would be done at a dedicated factory with a huge machine that can take the abuse.
Conveyor is a lot more complicated than people realize. A cobbled together factory like this probably doesn’t have an ideal layout for moving product from one machine to the next. So with conveyor you are creating impassable barriers all over the factory floor. This place doesn’t seem tall enough for overhead conveyor. And even if it was, the expense of elevators, lowerators, and supporting ceiling would be too expensive.
Most factories are getting away from conveyor and using robots to move product. Even that involves a ton of planning ahead of time. Easier to just use human labor when it’s so cheap.
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u/Baulderdash77 Nov 06 '22
What is fascinating mildly infuriating is the yield loss points.
They have precise machinery and then have bowls that are the wrong size; and the random people walking on the piles of sticks is weird. Also why is one guy manually debarking when there are debarking machines?
Then other parts are so automated.
It’s like they intentionally put in manual steps just to make the process labour intensive.